Unyielding Commissioning Doesn’t Know Either

My mind's made up: Yes folks, we have settled on Unyielding Commissioning for our random posting/newsworthy item. Expect to see the these updates a bit more often as we press on.

Arcade Fire Update: Neon Bible comes out today, so if you didn’t steal it off the internet, you will want to go and buy it now. Apparently there are two versions, a plain Jane one and then another with a “booklet”. I have no idea what this means, but you can be certain that I’m procuring the deluxe one. For the standard version, best deal around appears to be Circuit City ($7.99). The bookleted version is cheapest at Best Buy or Target ($11.99), although Target’s website is not as clear. I’m sure these deals are going fast, so get it done ASAP. Oh, and if you didn't get tickets to any of the three shows they're playing at the Chicago Theater, you'd better start being really nice to your friends who grabbed extras... New Stooges (The Weirdness) out today as well (11.99 at either BB or CC). Also new Antibalas.

Color me baffled: You may have noticed that Wild Hogs was not only the number one movie of the weekend, it actually nearly grossed $40 MM. What is wrong with you people?!? David Fincher’s Zodiac made only $13.4 MM, and Black Snake Moan came in at a piddling $4.1 MM. According to Yahoo,

“It was Walt Disney Co.’s biggest March opening ever. It was also the largest-ever debut for the 53-year-old Travolta as well as the best non-animated movie debut for Allen, who is also 53.”

I loathe the weekly news roundup of the “big winner at the box office” because that movie often makes something like twelve million. But they nearly cleared $40 MM! How could this have happened? First, let’s review what we know. Metacritic says it’s a 27. The Tomatometer says 18. So clearly the movie wasn’t well-reviewed. And unlike Norbit, there isn’t a star doing something people have loved seeing him do in the past. Regardless of Norbit’s shortcomings, I could see why folks wanted to check it out. But this is just shocking. The only thing I can come up with is that this was a brilliant exercise in demographic coverage. Tim Allen has his followers (white people from the deep suburbs – er, make that the rural suburbs – who watch TBS during the afternoon). William H. Macy has his followers (indie movie fans who love that he can play a wide range of characters who stammer). Martin Lawrence has his followers (drunk people). And Travolta has his followers (Scientologists? Really, I can’t imagine that anyone is actually a Travolta fan, right? I love Quentin Tarantino, but because of him, we've been subjected to more Travolta than is reasonable). In any event, they must have overlapped fan bases perfectly. If it still doesn’t add up, all I can say is, chicks dig bikes…

Here There be Tygers...
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